1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to computer security. More specifically, the present invention relates to the securing of CPU affinity in multiprocessor architectures.
2. Description of the Related Art
Widely-used modern computer systems are multitasking systems, which means that they can execute several applications and processes in parallel. This parallel execution paradigm can be realized via context switching on a processor as well as simultaneous execution on computer systems that have simultaneous-multithreading processors or multiprocessors. This feature of executing several processes in parallel brings the problem of balancing the load of the system, which is currently handled by the operating systems. Operating systems, including ones with time-slice multiplexing kernels, use scheduling algorithms to determine which threads or processes need to be executed at a given time. Since a computer system has limited resources in terms of processing power, only a certain amount of processes can actively execute at a certain time, and the kernel must have the ability to temporarily suspend the execution of a process to allow the execution of another.